Mansfield politics

[likwid]

Originally Posted by striperman36

what if I don't want all the 'services'?
or to continue to pay benefits for life for those that have worked there, and which are unfunded at time of agreement?

And your analogy about widgets is the way the private sector works.
This state has lost almost 17,000 IT jobs in locally run businesses, guess where they went? Actually the hiring 'over there' was almost triple
40-50K new jobs. My raises over the last 5 years hasn't even matched your COLA , I have had my pay cut twice and yes I've had to take furloughs, actually extended ones with no benefits or income.

Come join the 'private sector' you'll see the real world.

3/4 of those IT jobs were in Burlington. Half of them went out of business or were bought and shipped offshore. The execs got rich and the workers lost jobs.

TI is long gone from the industrial park, hell they sold the Attleboro campus years ago.

[striperman36]

Originally Posted by likwid

3/4 of those IT jobs were in Burlington. Half of them went out of business or were bought and shipped offshore. The execs got rich and the workers lost jobs.

TI is long gone from the industrial park, hell they sold the Attleboro campus years ago.

tell me about it, silicon valley east is in Bangalore now

[mosholu]

In all the commotion regarding the big banks and Wall Street the fact that they have moved thousands of jobs off shore never gets any play. Yet the management were paid a large bonus on the "improved results" which partially came from moving jobs overseas. When the bailout came I was hoping that there would be some noise about having a commitment to bring some of that back to the US I guess it is too small an issue in the scheme of things. The bank I used to work at had well over a thousand employees in Bangalore and if you talk to the senior it people they would tell you they savings were insignificant but nobody wanted to tell the emperor that he had no clothes.

[RIJIMMY]

Originally Posted by mosholu

In all the commotion regarding the big banks and Wall Street the fact that they have moved thousands of jobs off shore never gets any play. Yet the management were paid a large bonus on the "improved results" which partially came from moving jobs overseas. When the bailout came I was hoping that there would be some noise about having a commitment to bring some of that back to the US I guess it is too small an issue in the scheme of things. The bank I used to work at had well over a thousand employees in Bangalore and if you talk to the senior it people they would tell you they savings were insignificant but nobody wanted to tell the emperor that he had no clothes.

Mosh - please answer the following for me -
You have $10,000 to invest and want to put it into the banking sector. Bank A is locally owned and operated, employees only a US workforce, is not technolgy focused and doesnt offer a lot of innovative ideas but it is relatively profitable and stable.
Bank B is aggressive, and is looking to lead the sector, invests in new technology and is all about cutting costs, do more with less. They outsource tons of work but have the latest and greatest products and technology. As an investor where would you put your money?

People need to realize the goal of a business is to make money, period. they have no social, political or economic obligations. They only have legal obligations and obligations to their shareowners.Ex - the goal of the Boston red Sox is to make money, period. If it became profitable to lose baseball games, they would do all they could to lose them. They have no obligation to anyone but their owners.

[mosholu]

As to which company to invest in I think it is governed by what your risk expectations are.
That is not your question though which I believe is whether a company has some greater obligation to factors other than the highest return to its shareholders. Even if you took the strict view that the company's obligation is to return the maximum value to shareholders there would still be some limit on the company's activities. For example, saving money by using a cheaper but potentially more faulty brake system design may make more money for an auto company short term but long term may hurt the company's long term profits as customer may avoid their cars. Does management have a greater duty to the short term holder over the longer term investor? Moving jobs to the third world may save salary expenses short term but in a politically unsettled third world could be more risky and lead to greater costs in the long run. While the bank is free to move those jobs off shore my point was that (i) the rationale (money savings) seemed flawed based on the conversations I had with some of our IT people and (2) the government was in a strong position after the bail out to wrangle from these banks some type of commitment to maintain employment in the US and did not do so. That was an opportunity lost.